This is our second watering season in this new (to us) home. We moved in mid-June last year so this is our first Springtime here.

Today I replaced the older Hunter Pro-C w/Mini-Click rain sensor with the 16 zone Gen2 Rachio controller. I did reconnect and enable the Mini-Click on the Rachio unit. The Hunter unit was setup to water all 7 zones for 20 minutes a day. It would water Z1 for 20m, then move onto Z2 for 20m, etc… until complete unless the Mini-Clik had kicked in and prevented watering for a while. I wanted more intelligence and control as I know I have at least one zone that tends to retain water a lot longer than others.

My biggest question is should I be considering a Flexible Monthly or Flexible Daily schedule to start? I may have missed it, but I did not find a topic that walks a newbie through a flow chart to help determine what may be best for your needs.

I played around a bit and the default values spit out by a Flexible Monthly schedule was watering every other day for 1h50m @ 16m per zone. A Flexible Daily schedule showed 3h5 at 27m per zone for tomorrow morning only. I assume more days would pop up on the calendar after tomorrow ran if I left the flexible daily intact.

Some background on what I have…

I’m using weather station KTAN and watering only grass areas here in zip code 02347.

I used the USDA web soil survey to plot our yard and chose sandy loam for all zones based on its output. Maybe I’ll grab a mason jar and do some real observations at a later time.

All zones are between 4-6 rotor heads, no other type of nozzles exist for now. I plan to toss a bunch of cat food containers on the lawn and measure actual hourly output, but for now I’m using the default rotor head output value.

Most zones get a good amount of sun, though some zones may be better defined as some shade depending on the sun’s angle during the year. What may be some shade in spring is probably going to be mostly sunny over summer then back to some shade during fall.

We’re on well water (may I have a well pump delay please?) and have no watering restrictions.

I played around a bit and the default values spit out by a Flexible Monthly schedule was watering every other day for 1h50m @ 16m per zone.

A Flexible Daily schedule showed 3h5 at 27m per zone. I know the UI said the start day may be longer, but with recent rainfall we’ve had that still seemed long.

Any suggestions on where to start or am I totally overthinking it at this point? Thank you in advance!

I would say to use Flex Daily, I recently switched from Monthly and I’m very happy with the decision. The controller seems to analyze the forecast vs hardware setup better. You will see more watering time per zone but less frequent. Also if you look ahead (the next watering schedule) you will see that every day its not equal watering time. Give it a try and see whats the result is.